


bury me until i confess

by brandywine421



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, F/M, Gen, M/M, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-01-18
Updated: 2015-05-16
Packaged: 2018-03-08 02:58:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 10,488
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3192671
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brandywine421/pseuds/brandywine421
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bruce steadied himself.  "You are the definition of compromised, Cap, so you should probably let me in now."</p><p>Steve nodded.  "Don't ask about his mustache, he's really sensitive about it."</p><p> </p><p>(The one where Howard makes really bad decisions, but not the ones you think.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. 1.  Sidebar

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah. So this happened. Vague science, bad hair mentions and canon-fudging can be found here.
> 
> Disclaimer: I own nothing but a laptop with missing keys.

Steve closed the hotel door behind him and let out a breath to steady himself.  
  
It had been a long few months but after being encased in ice for 70 odd years, he didn't mind stretching his legs and travel the world nonstop.  He didn't blame his backup, or minders, whatever, needing to take a break.  But after dropping Sam at the airport, he realized that this would be the first time Natasha, Clint or Maria wouldn't be taking the spare bed.  
  
It hadn't been safe for him lately to be alone with his own thoughts but they were getting closer and all signs pointed to Bucky coming back to himself.  It was easier to follow him, but frustratingly harder to find enough information to know what kind of mental state he would be in when they finally found him.  
  
Maybe he could use a break.  Maybe he would sleep over four hours at a stretch.  Maybe he would eat until he couldn't eat anymore.  Maybe he would go more than a few hours without going over the research.  
  
Maybe if he took a break he could think clearly again.  
  
He showered and trimmed his experimental beard and brushed his teeth and hair until he felt fresh and stable.  Then he practiced spending Tony's money, aka his Stark Industries salary, by ordering one of everything on the room service menu.  
  
Steve could take a break.  He'd accomplished harder tasks in his life than taking a time out.  
  
The knock on the door startled him and he dropped the remote.  The future had too many choices for entertainment to decide on a whim, movies and TV were serious business.  
  
He checked the peephole and his phone to check the cameras they'd planted before they signed in.  There was a single waiter standing with two rolling carts.  
  
His break was going to be awesome if the carts were full of as much food as he hoped.

He opened the door and recognized a dead man, but not the one he'd been searching for.  
  
"Heard you were looking for an old friend, Cap."  Howard's grin was the same even with blond hair and no mustache.  He couldn't be a day over forty.  
  
He cursed fucking _breaks_ and yanked the man inside with one hand and grabbed for his sidearm left on the table with the other.  
  
"Hey now, just relax - I'm unarmed and - _ow_ \- I thought you'd at least listen to me before - " Howard, or his doppelganger, rambled as he pinned him against the wall for closer study.  
  
"Who are you?" he demanded.  In 2015, he couldn't trust the familiarity of Howard's eyes or the scar on his neck from an inopportune 'war wound' that involved a barber shop and a blow job.  
  
The dark eyes scanned his face, brimming with emotion and awe.  "I'll explain everything, you can run whatever tests you need and they'll show the truth.  God, Cap, it's damned good to see you."  
  
Steve considered the situation.  He ran his hand over Howard's face to check for one of the glamoring masks Natasha liked so much, but he only found bare skin and a frowning grimace.  "Life Model Decoy?"  
  
Howard, or whoever, flashed a relieved smile.  "Not me, but the Howard Stark that died 20 years ago or so, yes.  I... _shit_ , Cap, you know me and my impulsive decisions.  I wanted - _needed_ \- to keep my family safe and make damned sure I was here when you came back.  Granted, you took your time and my LMD turned out to be a jerk - and I didn't calculate that possibility in at all."  
  
"LMD's have their original's personality," Steve replied dryly.  
  
"I didn't have a kid when I designed that part, and it was an LMD prototype - believe me, I've been brewing in guilt since I caught up on my son's well-documented life," Howard said, visibly upset.  
  
Steve's grip relaxed a notch and he let the man catch his breath.  
  
"Come on, Cap, I've done a lot of fucked up things to get here so can we talk?"  
  
"Prove it," Steve said finally.  If he was a HYDRA operative maybe he could get some intel, and if he wasn't, well, he'd have to think about that.  
  
Blond Howard smiled.  "You caught me banging Colonel Jenkins' wife in his office and yanked me by the ear into the hallway before I could tuck it in."  
  
"They'd been married ten years!" Steve frowned, remembering the moment.  "You're an awful person."  
  
Howard grinned.  "That's exactly what you said then before you smacked me on the back of the head.  I had double vision for three days."  
  
Steve hadn't seen that story studying Howard's history and statements from his ice years.  Howard would have never shamed a woman by bragging about his encounters without permission.  "You deserved it."  
  
"Cap.  It's me.  I swear."  
  
He lowered his arm completely let Howard's feet touch the floor.  He exhaled.  
  
"Shut up, Stark," he sighed, pulling him into a crushing embrace that the man returned with relieved enthusiasm.  
  



	2. 2.  Consultant

Bruce considered Steve a friend, not as close as Tony but closer than he'd ever be with Clint or Natasha but he wasn't used to being the one getting called to clandestine meetings with Captain America.  
  
He knew Cap was going through a rough time, he heard Maria and Pepper whispering about it.  They didn't think he had enhanced hearing when he wasn't Hulked out and he had forgotten to mention it.  He'd deduced so far that Cap and Hill were banging occasionally but he was too 'emotionally unavailable' for her to be able to 'get up on that' every night.  Oh, and that he was dangerously obsessed with finding James Barnes.  
  
He heard laughter before he raised his hand to rap on the door.  He recognized Steve's voice, but he'd never heard him laugh like that.  Curiosity won out over his misgivings and he knocked.  
  
The door opened almost immediately and Bruce made a note that Steve looked more relaxed than he'd seen, hell, probably ever.  Who the hell was in there?  
  
Steve closed the door behind him without letting him into the room.  But he was smiling and his eyes were bright.  "Hey.  Thank you for coming, Bruce. I really need your expertise."  
  
He had a rush of panic but the Hulk didn't stir, not yet.  "Did you find Barnes?"  
  
"No, but I found someone else.  You'll have to see for yourself, but I need your brain on this.  I'm...I think he's telling the truth, but you've done research on Cryostasis and you can figure out how to work this rapid DNA travel thing.  If he is legitimate, I want you to check him over," Steve continued until Bruce held up his hand.  
  
"Pause.  You're going to have to tell me who it is eventually.  Do you think he's HYDRA?  Mind-controlled?"  
  
Steve hesitated.  "I thought he was an LMD but the blood tester, that I **do** know how to work, says he's 100% human.  He's been dead 40 odd years."  
  
The was definitely interesting, and the wrong timeline for Barnes.  Bruce searched his memory, calculating Steve's roster of dead friends and the year of their deaths from their research.  
  
"Do you know who made the first LMD?" Steve asked.  
  
Bruce rolled his eyes, of course he did.  Steve blinked at him and the realization hit him.  "You mean - "  
  
"Yeah.  He says a prototype lived his life for a few decades while he was in a pod in a secret lab.  SHIELD didn't know, only a handful of people knew, and since the last one isn't...she isn't well, but she remembered enough to let him out before she lost everything in her memory," Steve said.  
  
Bruce steadied himself.  "You are the definition of compromised, Cap, so you should probably let me in now."  
  
Steve nodded.  "Don't ask about his mustache, he's really sensitive about it."  
  
Bruce followed him into the room.  Howard Stark didn't look like any of the pictures he'd seen with the bleach blond hair, at first, but the face was a perfect replica down to the smirk.  
  
"Oh, you brought Banner?  Damn, man, you really messed up that serum formula, didn't you?"  
  
Yeah, that sounded like a Stark.  
  
"Howard, be nice," Steve sighed fondly.  
  
"Cap gave me a very sparse rundown, why don't you start from the beginning?"  
  
"Which one?" Howard beamed, winking at him.  
  
"You know how Tony freaks out and runs away when things get too emotionally complicated?  Howard wasn't emotionally prepared to have a kid," Steve said.  
  
Howard glared at him sharply.  "It was for his own safety - for Maria's safety.  They would always be in danger and I didn't have the skills...I wouldn't be able to protect them.  I didn't know the LMD would revert to my asshole default, not with the kid.  Pegs should have pulled me out of Cryo as soon as he send Anthony to boarding school."  He hesitated.  "He was a prototype and I should have done more testing before running with the plan.  I did this to protect them and I ended up ruining their lives.  The LMD had too many memories of my own father and not enough of Maria and none of a kid of his own.  I didn't have time to create a new set of memories for him before I rolled him out.  Peggy and Dugan filled him in after I was under, and Dugan, you know how much he hated me.  I don't think he believed I loved Maria."  
  
"Damn.  Okay, so putting that aside because I need all the dates and details from that - " Bruce started, pausing as Howard patted down his pockets and pulled out a USB stick.  
  
"I've been awake a couple of years in hiding so I transferred everything to digital so I could burn the hard copies," Howard said.  "Everything from my original research is on there."  
  
Bruce glanced at Cap.  
  
"I tried to give it to him already but he said I had to wait for 'a scientist'," Howard muttered.  "Like the bastard's not smart enough to figure it out, I'm onto him.  He's lazy."  
  
"He's compromised," Bruce replied.  "There's a big difference."  
  
"The serum didn't affect my brain," Steve sighed.  
  
"Yes it did," Bruce and Howard said in unison.  
  
Steve rolled his eyes.  "Moving on, tell him the rest."  
  
"He hates sitting still to take the IQ test," Bruce said.  
  
"Yeah, he hated them before, too.  Never finished a whole one," Howard nodded.  "Back to the 60's.  I went into Cryo with Peggy and a handful of Commandos as the only ones that knew.  I had a secret lab in a different name, they took care of shifting the deed into various aliases that I would use when they woke me up.  I wish to hell they'd found Cap sooner, he was the signal for me to get the big thaw.  Well, that was the main one; as a fail-safe, it fell to the last man, or woman, standing to let me out.  Peggy got her diagnosis and flipped the switch."  
  
Steve shifted unhappily and Howard avoided Bruce's eyes.  "She didn't remember me by the time I made it to DC.  Nothing, not the war, not when we started SHIELD, none of it.  I'm lucky she got me out before she forgot everything.  Her niece caught me before I left, recognized my alias and gave me a key to a safe deposit box.  Lady followed me for six months before I lost her, persistent just like her aunt."  
  
"Sharon's definitely fierce when she's on the job," Bruce said.  
  
Howard smirked, turning to Steve.  "You're probably her type."  
  
Steve's face wrinkled with a frown.  "We went out but then we found out we both had pictures of Peggy on our bedroom dressers."  
  
"Ouch," Bruce bit back a smile at his blush.  
  
"Please tell me you're not still on that 'no sex without God's permission' thing," Howard said, but despite the lightness in his tone, there was actual concern in his eyes.  
  
Steve opened his mouth and then closed it again.  Finally his shoulders relaxed and he shook his head.  He tilted his head slightly.  "They pierce *everything* now, Howard.  *Everything*.  Nobody's safe sex talks mentioned that and, well, it was a shock."  
  
"Really?" Bruce asked without thinking.  
  
Howard smiled and punched him in the shoulder.  "Good for you, kid.  She better be worth it, I expect to vet her thoroughly."  
  
"You mean you want to hit on her to see if she'll cheat," Steve pointed out.  "If you're really Howard, then I know how you work already."  
  
Despite the inevitable fallout, Bruce started to hope that this guy was the real thing for Cap's sake.  
  
Tony would be a different story altogether.


	3. 3.  Minder

"I know I'll have to meet him eventually.  I'm prepared.  Whether he decides to shoot me in the face or kick me in the balls, I take full responsibility," Howard said suddenly.  "It never played out like this in my plans.  I didn't think it would be 40 years, I didn't think everyone I trusted would be dead or dying.  That my son would hate me and Stevie would be cleaning up more of my messes."  
  
Bruce lowered the stethoscope from Howard's bared chest and glanced at Steve who was similarly stricken by the outburst.  
  
Howard sighed.  "Peggy wrote me letters, updates, on everything, and Jarvis was there.  They made it seem like he kept his distance to keep the kid out of the public view, off the front lines, but a kid needs a fucking family.  And, shit, Maria hated me, the LMD me, by then.  But I guess he inherited my ability to fuck up everything I touch."  
  
"I still don't get the point of it, Howard, why would you just - why would you do that on purpose?  You missed so much, you had a life - " Steve whispered, confused.  
  
"It was a really good idea at the time," Howard muttered, rubbing his face.  "Can I button up, Doc?"  
  
Bruce nodded and checked the laptop for the lab results again and this time they lit up.  He read them.  Twice.  "Okay.  So you're Howard Stark."  
  
He gave a little wave.  
  
"Can you explain about the hair?" Steve asked after a beat.  Steve seemed unusually bothered by the blond.  
  
"I learned all about facial recognition software, so the mustache..." he hesitated with a distant look before continuing.  "It had to go.  I change my hair every couple of months.  I mean, I'm a dead man, but from what I've dug out of SHIELD files, that doesn't keep me off the bad guys' radar.  Better safe than sorry."  
  
If Howard was anything like Tony, and so far all signs pointed to yes; it was possible he could have caught up on 40 years of technology and history hiding in a bunker with classified intel left by loyal friends.  
  
"Well, you found me so you won't have to worry about anyone coming after you.  I'm going to go get you some hair color and a fake mustache so I can process this," Steve said, accepting the explanation with a decisive nod.  
  
"Uh, Cap, the world thinks you're dead, too," Bruce pointed out.  "And you have a beard."  
  
"But he's blond.  I can't handle that.  I have a very precarious mental state," Steve said, feigning seriousness.  
  
"Speaking of, your phone's been flashing for the last hour behind you," Howard announced.  
  
Steve cursed and hurried to check in.  "I need to call in."  
  
"Don't go far," Howard called, following him with his gaze.  
  
"What's that about?" Bruce asked.  Howard was overly concerned about Steve.  
  
"He doesn't have a minder.  I've been holding back, staying out of the way until I got my head together but now he's here by himself and that's unacceptable.  He's after Bucky Barnes and if you think he's compromised by me being here, then you have no idea how fucking blind he is about Barnes," Howard hissed.  "The only way I'm going to get out of this mess that I made is if I have Cap watching my back, and fuck knows I'm going to watch his.  You cannot let him keep chasing Bucky."  
  
"I don't think anyone's been able to talk him out of it so far," Bruce replied carefully.    
  
Howard huffed.  "Everyone he knows is dead and most of the people I know are dead or elderly traitors, so maybe we have a little more in common than he does with his new friends.  He said my kid hates him."  
  
"Tony doesn't hate him," Bruce said.  Huh.  He didn't know Steve felt that way.  
  
"The point is, I want to make sure I can save Barnes before we find him.  I've studied everything I could get my hands on about what they did to him and I - fuck, I didn't look for him like I did for Cap.  That's another sin I have to live with but I know if I get my hands into a better lab and do some more research that I can get him back."  Howard scrubbed a hand across his face.  "Cap's going into this blind and he's not going to be able to deal with it."  
  
Bruce studied him.  "We've been working on containment and rehabilitation options since he came to us with the story."  
  
"That's the difference, Barnes is a story to you, but he's Cap's best friend and a damned good friend of mine.  I need to save him, too, but not at the risk of Cap going kamikaze again," Howard said.  "I can save him, but not until I know more about what they did to him.  I want to be sure he suffers as little as possible when we deprogram him.  I can fix this."  
  
The door opened and Steve stepped in.  Shit, he probably heard everything.  
  
Howard was nonplussed and turned his full attention to Steve.  "I can fix him, Cap, you know I can.  Please.  Work with me so we'll be ready when you find him.  I messed up a lot of things, but I can fix him.  You're compromised."  
  
"You can't say that to me," Steve replied.  
  
"I'm the only one that can say that to you," Howard replied.  "You have a beard and I'm blond, I think we both need some time to get our shit together."  
  
"Cap, what do you want to do?" Bruce broke the tension when they failed to light each other on fire with their stares.  
  
"I've been following your world tour, Cap, and I guarantee Bucky's been following it, too.  You need to regroup," Howard said.  
  
Steve blinked at him.  "Okay.  We'll head to New York so you can give us all the information you promised and I can talk to Tony."  
  
Bruce rolled his eyes at Howard's triumphant smirk in his direction.  Steve thumped the man on the ear but the tension in his shoulders was looser than he'd seen on Cap in months.


	4. 4.  Tightrope

"I'm having a really hard time."  
  
Tony turned at the sound of Cap's voice and scanned him automatically for injuries.  He hadn't seen the guy in person for a few months, at least, and the beard was impressive.  And telling.  
  
"I have actually heard that," Tony shrugged honestly.  "Who finally convinced you to come home?  Did you find - "  
  
Cap barked out a slightly hysterical laugh.  "Bucky - no, he's still out there.  I have more mind-fucking problems to deal with."  
  
He impulsively reached out and guided Cap to Pepper's favorite comfy chair that she used to chat with him when he was working.  The language would have worried him at first but it was default for Cap since he took down the Agency that he owed his life.  He wasn't sure what kind of chat Cap needed right now, but he was here and Tony was going to take his opening.  
  
Tony had been having a hard time, too, and he couldn't deny a small spiral after the fall of SHIELD.  He'd shut out everyone, even Rhodey to a point, fighting flashbacks of traitors and betrayal and wearing blinders until he made it through the depths of SHIELD's leaked files.  
  
"Tell me what's going on," he said.  
  
"What do you know about Life Model Decoys?" Steve asked.  
  
Tony got a bad feeling.  "A little," he hedged.  He had researched all of his father's inventions.  
  
"Who made the first one?"  
  
His bad feeling got a lot worse.  "Howard."  
  
Steve nodded and met his gaze.  "He showed up at my hotel a couple of days ago."  
  
"Who?" Tony asked, refusing to accept what he was inferring.  He needed to hear the words before he attempted to consider them.  
  
"Your father, allegedly not the one that raised you because that one was allegedly an LMD.  Allegedly - "  
  
"I get it, allegedly, what the hell - "  
  
Steve took a wavering breath.  "He says he freaked out when your mom got pregnant, but I think there was more to it than that.  Peggy was the last living person that knew where he was."  
  
"It's been 20 years since he died and he was in his 40's when I was born, Cap, he'd be - " Tony tried to catch up.  
  
"Cryostasis.  Frozen in a pod.  He's, hell, he's your age," Cap replied, shaken even though he was the one that knew the story.  "He's been in hiding for a couple of years, his friends left him messages for what he missed and he said he was biding his time until he knew who to trust."  
  
Of course Howard would trust Cap before his own kid.  He paused.  What?  "Wait.  You're saying my Dad was frozen in a Cryo chamber when I was a baby and I was raised by an LMD?"  
  
"He went in the pod before you were born, at least that's what he says.  That's why I keep saying 'allegedly'," Steve sighed.  "I called Bruce because I didn't know what else to do.  He says Howard's the real thing and saw signs of tissue damage from the Cryo pod.  I wouldn't bring this to you if I wasn't as sure as I could be, Tony.  I don't know how to deal with this so I have no idea how you're going to deal with it."  
  
He pulled Cap out of the comfy chair and took his place.  He wished he could sink through the cushion.  "Oh.  _Shit_.  Where is he?"  
  
"Hopefully Bruce got him to the hairdresser, I refuse to talk to him until he looks normal," Steve replied absently.  "He feels guilty as hell, something about the personality and memory files he put in the prototype being outdated which ended up giving you a crappy father.  If you decide to see him, he's probably going to quiz you about your mom."  
  
"My mom, like he ever cared about her - I never saw him touch her," Tony muttered.  Outdated memory files?  He needed to pull everything he had on LMDs.  He hoped JARVIS was taking notes because this wasn't making sense yet.  
  
Steve winced.  "Maybe don't mention that.  He really cared about her."  
  
Tony huffed thoughtfully.  "What the fuck."  
  
"I didn't know that Howard, the LMD one.  I don't think I know the one in my safehouse right now because I'd been in the ice 20 years by the time he started this mess," Steve sighed.  
  
"Who else knows?"  
  
"Bruce is the only one that knows the details.  I'm in one of Maria's safehouses so she'll probably be snooping around eventually."  
  
"You have to take that woman on a date," Tony muttered absently.  His father.  A father he'd apparently, _allegedly_ , never met.  "Shit, Cap, what am I supposed to do with this?"  
  
"I have no idea," Steve replied.  "He says he can help with Bucky.  This is a huge clusterfuck, but...I'm really glad he's here."  
  
"Huh."  
  
Steve sighed.  "I know you don't like me to talk about him and I've respected that, but Howard was a really good friend to me.  He looked out for me, even when he went about it the wrong way - he did his best.  He got me on that USO tour and out of lab, Tony, he made sure my team stayed with the SSR and not shipped out on random missions out of our hands.  He did a lot for me and mine.  He's one of mine, he was a Commando even without a uniform.  He wasn't a soldier, but we didn't need a soldier as much as we needed a Stark.  He looked after us, but I don't think he had anyone to look after him."  
  
"I can't deal with this right now.  I need to see this imposter and find out what his game is.  Bruce believes him?" Tony asked.  
  
"Yeah.  Bruce says I'm compromised about Howard and Howard says I'm compromised about Bucky - " Tony huffed his agreement and let Steve's glare roll over him.  "So my opinion doesn't count for much right now.  You have to decide for yourself."  
  
Tony shuddered and leaned forward.  "You're an asshole, Cap."  
  
"Sometimes.  Comes with the job."  
  
He snorted.  "Guess so.  All right, so we need backup.  I'm calling Pepper."  
  
"Good idea," Steve nodded.  
  
"And you're calling Maria," Tony added.  "You and Pepper can deal with all the emotional bullshit while me and Maria figure out this whole LMD theory."  
  
"I was going to take her out, we don't have to double date," Steve replied after a beat.  
  
Tony pushed himself out of the comfy chair and swatted the back of Steve's head.  "Suck it up, Cap."  
  
He hoped he could take his own advice.


	5. 5.  Session

  
Pepper sat down beside Steve when Tony and Maria were sufficiently distracted by the USB of research on the holographic displays.  
  
"All right, tell me about Howard.  It's pretty obvious you think he's the real thing," Pepper said quietly.  
  
Steve sighed.  "Yeah.  It sounds crazy enough to be something he would do.  I still don't get why, though.  I'm...disappointed."  
  
She gave him an expectant look.  
  
"I don't know.  Bucky, he had his life taken from him when he fell off the train.  He didn't have any choice.  Howard, he had a life, a girl and a child on the way but he chose to lock himself in a freezer for 40 years.  Who does that?"  Steve whispered.  
  
"Oh, Cap, don't ever try to figure out why a Stark does something, that way leads to madness," Pepper said, patting his knee.  "You guys were close, before?"  
  
He nodded.  "Yeah, we were.  The propaganda, public appearances, all that jazz - he was always there for direction and distraction.  He kept me from throwing up on film and I kept him from getting caught with loose women.  Bucky hated him, at least he tried really hard to; but Howard was charming and had this way of waggling his eyebrows that got even the angriest husbands to let him off the hook."  
  
Pepper snickered.  "Well, that definitely sounds familiar."  
  
"He wasn't cold.  Distracted, yeah, but never cold.  Hearing Tony talk about his childhood, and reading about Howard's life after I went down; I thought he just changed.  I don't know what kind of things he went through.  Now he shows up and tells me that wasn't him and I don't know what to believe.  I have no idea how Tony's going to take it."  
  
"And the Howard we got back is one that neither one of you know," Pepper hummed.  
  
Steve shrugged.  "I guess.  He's more...timid than I remember.  Skittish, paranoid.  Sad.  _Lost_.  I can't abandon him and...I hope that Tony won't hate me for that."  
  
"He won't.  Well, maybe for a while, but he'll get over it.  You're his friend and he knows how you tick, hell, everyone knows how you tick.  You don't leave men behind.  Even the dead ones," she winked at him.  
  
"I just wish I could have one soul-crushing problem to deal with at a time, I hate multitasking," Steve sighed.  
  
"How long are you going to stick around this time?" she asked.  
  
He glanced at her but she didn't retract the question.  "Until I figure out what the hell is going on."  
  
"Stay a little longer than that.  Don't shut out the friends you have in this time," Pepper said softly.  
  
He held his breath.  "Do you think I should give up the search?"  
  
"This Howard took a couple of years to get himself together before facing the world, maybe your friend, Bucky, could use a few months without being tailed to come to his senses."  She shrugged.  "A lot of us would like having you around more.  I heard you were supposed to be on a voluntary break anyway."  
  
"Maybe.  I should do a press conference or something if I'm sticking around longer than a few days," Steve considered aloud.  
  
Pepper smiled brightly.  "You can still track your friend without being on the road full time, and you can spend time with your other not-dead friend while you're on safe ground."  
  
He needed to get back on the grid.  He needed to bunker down and shake his tunnel vision.  He needed to talk to Howard.  
  
Pepper hesitated, glancing at Tony and lowering her voice.  "You still have your place here in the Tower, and it's fitted out to keep surveillance in case you brought Barnes back with you, I'm sure it can keep Howard from roaming around."  
  
"I'll have to talk to him about that, and you'll have to talk about it with Tony," Steve replied.  
  
"Do you think he'll come after SI?" Pepper blurted out, flushing.  
  
"Um."  Steve hadn't spared a thought to the company.  "He hasn't mentioned it, I think he had money hidden and invested.  I don't think he's expecting to just walk back on the scene, he's been dead a while and he's not a superhuman."  
  
"Bring it up with him, please, so I'll know what to expect," she said.  
  
"Mother _fucking_ hell," Tony yelled throwing up his hands.  "How is this my life?  What the fuck - it's - how does this even happen?"  
  
Steve glanced at Pepper and she dutifully stood up to take over before Maria could get caught up in his building 'freak-out'.  
  
Maria took Pepper's seat with an exhausted sigh.  "You really don't make things easy."  
  
"This is not my fault," Steve replied.  He was so tired.  Maria looked nice.  
  
"Cap?"  
  
"Sorry," he said, shaking off his lapse.  "Hey, I'm sticking around a bit, I think."  She raised her eyebrow.  "So, maybe, we could get together.  I...I missed you."  
  
She started to smile but flicked her eyes away from him.  Interesting.  "Yeah?"  
  
"Yeah.  I'm a mess right now, but if you're still game, we should go out," Steve said.  
  
"I'll drive you back to the safehouse and we can talk about it," Maria replied.  
  
Tony walked over, red-faced with fire in his eyes.  "No more safehouses, Bruce is going to bring that asshole to the Tower and you're going to lock him in your rooms so we can scan the fuck out of him.  If this shit is true, then I need to hear it from him."  
  



	6. 6.  Negotiations

"I was dying," Howard said quietly as he doodled on the edge of Bruce's notes.  
  
Oh.  Bruce knew he'd be running more tests on Howard back at the Tower but this added an extra round.  "Is that why you chose to go into the deep freeze?"  
  
"Partially.  Cap's right about me being terrified at having a family, but the 'dead by New Year's' thing definitely influenced the decision.  It wasn't a sure thing, no matter how much we acted like it; I didn't really consider that it would work.  Peggy was the only one that knew about the diagnosis.  Her notes said she got the cure in the 70's and when I woke up, I was okay.  My liver and kidneys are fully functional again and I feel fine.  You don't want to know how much money I had to shell out to get a complete workup with no insurance," Howard added.  
  
"Did you tell Steve that?" Bruce asked.  
  
"He doesn't need to worry about health insurance - "  
  
"Howard," Bruce sighed.  He liked the guy and from the hours he'd spent with him so far, he hadn't seen any sign of the man that Tony spoke about after too many highballs.  
  
"I'm a coward.  I was terrified of dying.  I was worried about my wife, and my kid; but that was nothing compared to my own mortality.  So I saved my own ass without thinking of anything else.  And now I'm here, my kid's an amazing, brilliant man and I had nothing to do with it.  The only reason people remember me are weapons and greed.  Anthony's a hero, and I'm a coward," Howard said.  
  
"Maybe, but that's not really the point anymore.  You're here and you're not dying.  That's what you have to work with," Bruce replied.  "We do the best we can with what we have, even when we have nothing."  
  
Howard rolled his eyes.  "You sound like a pamphlet.  I'm going to help Steve get Bucky back and then deal with the rest.  If...if I were Anthony, I wouldn't want anything to do with me, so I'm prepared for him to consider me dead."  
  
"You could start earning points by calling him 'Tony'," Bruce said.  "I won't lie to you, I don't think he's going to take the news well, but he's a good man.  Don't write him off after the first, or first few, meetings."  
  
"He's my kid, I would never write him off," Howard replied.  "Forty years, I mean, that's - I sat in that bunker for the first few hours after I woke up praying that it was a lie.  I don't even believe in God.  I thought working on the Manhattan project would be my biggest regret because, hello genocide, but I managed to ruin the things I rationalized I was trying to save.  If I can help Cap, it might be a drop in my bucket of penance."  
  
"Wow, you're almost as fucked up as the rest of us," Bruce said after a long beat.  
  
"Almost?  Well.  I supposed that's something," Howard snorted.


	7. 7.  Daddy issues.

"Give me sound," Tony said when Bruce and his possibly defrosted sperm donor stepped onscreen.  
  
He looked the part, swagger and a smirk intact without the tailored suit and mustache.  
  
"I read through a lot of his papers when I was catching up in my bunker, his mind's amazing.  He was creating things when he was a child that I spent years trying to grasp," Howard said as the mike picked up.  
  
"You must've done a lot of research to find papers, he doesn't publish that often anymore," Bruce replied, relaxed.  Tony wasn't sure how he felt about Bruce making friends with his possible clone of a father.  
  
"Jarvis kept a scrapbook, he had copies of everything.  He wrote equations on the kitchen cabinets with crayon when he was a toddler and Jarvis took pictures before he cleaned it up.  There were a lot of videos up until that bastard LMD sent him to boarding school," Howard continued.  
  
Tony felt like he'd been punched in the gut.  Who the hell was this guy?  
  
"His first Masters' thesis was amazing, the things he does with math just blow my mind.  I wish I could have seen it for myself," Howard said, following Bruce onto the elevator as he scanned the lobby with bright eyes.  "Steve lives here?"  
  
"Not often, he was in DC and since then he's been on the road, but he's always had a set of rooms here.  Tony's...abrasive sometimes and Cap hasn't gotten used to it, yet.  SHIELD kept him busy when he first woke up and then he threw himself into the hunt for Barnes," Bruce said.  _Abrasive_ , Tony supposed that was a kind way to put it.  
  
Howard huffed.  "We're going to talk about Cap's coping mechanisms.  No one really knew where a supersoldier would fit after the war was over and from what I dug up in the leaked files, it doesn't seem like anyone figured that out yet."  He raised his hand to the touchscreen panel on the elevator.  "I hope Anthony doesn't hate me.  I have so many questions."  
  
There's no way his father was a nice guy.  It was fucking impossible.  "JARVIS, get Cap in here before he goes downstairs," Tony said finally, muting the sound on the elevator ride.  
  
Steve frowned when he walked into the office a few minutes later.  "I was summoned from the bathroom, I think there are laws about watching people go to the bathroom."  
  
"What is this guy's deal?  He's complimenting my work, saying that he watched videos of me growing up - " Tony waved him off and motioned at the monitors.  "That is not my father."  
  
Steve scanned the screens curiously.  "He's definitely different than I remember, but he's the same, too."  
  
"How?  Dad would never openly acknowledge someone else's work, especially not mine," Tony said.  
  
Steve smiled and chuckled softly.  "I knew he would love this place.  He's going to touch everything and then crack it open to see how it ticks."  
  
Tony narrowed his eyes.  "I don't want him touching my stuff."  
  
"You told me to bring him," Steve replied, oddly relaxed.  "What do you want me to do?"  
  
"He's actually your friend," Tony realized.  "I don't know if I ever got that, I thought..."  
  
Steve shrugged.  "You made it seem like your dad was obsessed with Captain America, but Howard was my friend outside of the suit more.  Hell, he designed that suit to embarrass me, not to make me an icon."  
  
"I'm in the Twilight Zone.  We should've talked about this sooner," Tony muttered.  
  
"Look, if you want me to keep him out of your way or - " Steve started.  
  
Tony shook his head.  "No, I want you to introduce us and play referee.  If he's not - if he's not an asshole, I don't want to be an asshole to him.  Does that make sense?"  
  
"No," Steve replied.  "But I get it.  He has a lot to answer for."  
  
Tony studied the man.  "You and I have never really gotten along, how are you even friends with a man like Howard?"  
  
Steve hesitated.  "Probably because he knew me before the serum.  He was pretty against me as the test subject, and he hated to be proved wrong so he went out of his way to back me up after that.  I'd never met anyone like him; he was rich, cocky and crazy as hell, but he was also kind, funny and, well, fun.  You're too caught up in the Captain America persona to get to know me behind the SHIELD, but a lot of that seems to be LMD Howard's work."  He looked away.  "God, I'm not supposed to believe it yet."  
  
"Well, let's go not believe it together."  
  



	8. 8.  Glitch

Pepper dropped her hand from Tony's back when Steve pushed open the door to his rooms.  She watched him slip into his swagger like armor forming around him and Steve gave her a soft smile.  
  
He saw more than he let on and she was glad he was here to 'referee'.  
  
"Hey, you, first thing - I'm going to call you Howard and you're going to call me - you know what?  Don't call me anything, just sit there and speak when spoken to," Tony announced.  
  
Howard's eyes widened and flicked to Steve.  
  
"Thank you for fixing your hair," Steve replied with a small smile of encouragement.  
  
Pepper had already quizzed Bruce thoroughly but seeing Howard's fond eye roll at Steve's comment showed that Howard and Steve were closer than any of them knew.  
  
Howard visibly squared his shoulders and faced down Tony.  His dark - familiar - eyes searched Tony's face and mapped him from head to toe.  "I...I don't know what to say.  I'm sorry's not enough, but goddamn it, you - you were an amazing kid and you're an amazing man and I really wish I'd been around to see it happen."  
  
Tony blanched and she put her hand on his arm and steered him over to the far couch.  "Mr. Stark, once we ensure you're not an enemy plant, you'll be able to speak openly, but we have some questions first," Pepper said.  
  
Howard nodded and sat down.  "Ms. Potts, right?  You've done a helluva job with Stark Industries, Anthony's too good with his hands to waste time watching stocks."  
  
That was not what she expected him to say.  
  
"Who the hell are you, because you're definitely not my father," Tony stated.  "The only thing you ever cared about was the company."  
  
Howard blinked at him.  "I needed the money to fund my research, if I'd known that bastard would turn it all into weapons, I would have shut the place down myself.  I can't process how wrong everything went, he wasn't supposed to - it wasn't supposed to be 40 years.  He wasn't supposed to be an asshole, I wasn't an asshole, not like him.  I wasn't an asshole, was I?" he asked, looking to Cap.  
  
"Not the bad kind," Steve replied quietly.  
  
"Why the hell would you do it?  If you really loved Mom like Cap says - " Tony started.  
  
"I loved Maria," he interrupted.  "With everything I had, I fucking loved her.  I would have done anything for her and the - I did it to give her a better life, to give you a better life - she...she was _everything_ to me."  
  
Pepper clamped her hand down on Tony's knee but he didn't stop trembling.  
  
"It wasn't supposed to be 40 years..." Howard whispered.  "I'm so sorry..."  
  
"You should be," Tony replied.  
  
Howard took a visible breath.  "If you want me to go..."  
  
"I wouldn't do that to Cap," Tony replied before he could finish.  "If - and I'm still very much on the fence - **if** you're telling the truth, we'll talk again.  You're nothing like my father and it's going to take more than some fake words to convince me that you're real."  
  
Howard nodded.  "I understand.  I'd...really like to get to know you when you're ready.  I won't ask you to forgive me because I don't deserve that."  He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small keycard.  "This is for the bunker where I was staying, you'll find all the records and equipment there."  
  
"Why don't you give it to Cap?" Tony asked.  
  
"I didn't freeze myself because of Cap," Howard replied with a baffled expression.  "All the proof you can't get from a DNA test is in that bunker.  You can see all my sins for yourself.  Mine, not that asshole you knew."  
  
Tony took the card and brought her with him when he stood.  He turned to Steve.  "Don't let him out of your sight until I get back."  
  
"Take Bruce with you," Steve said.  "Please."  
  
Tony rolled his eyes and Pepper wondered if he really knew how much he took after the man claiming to be his father.  "We'll be in touch, don't let him touch my stuff."  
  
"On it," Steve saluted, walking them to the door.  "Are you all right?"  
  
"Ask me in a couple of hours," Tony replied, but Steve's short squeeze of his shoulder steadied him more than her hand on his wrist.  
  
She turned to him as soon as the door was closed behind them.  "Are you all right?"  
  
"I don't know."  
  
She put her arms around him and he turned his face into her neck. "It's really him. He didn't die...he left me, he left Mom...he left us with...a fake..."  
  
She hoped whatever was in that bunker would give more of an explanation for Howard's insanely flawed plan.


	9. 9.  Congeal

"You know, when we agreed to let you go solo for a couple of weeks, this isn't exactly what we had in mind," Natasha said as she walked into Steve's living room.

Howard Stark gave her an appreciative scan but she glared the grin off his face before he could get a flirt out.

"Me either," Steve replied, pulling her into a hug that she allowed herself to return for a moment longer than necessary.  "Did you read - "

"I'm getting live updates from Pepper and Bruce.  Tony's gone quiet," Natasha added under her breath.  "What a mess."

"Howard, this is Natasha Romanova," Steve said.

She gave him a sparse nod and he sighed, slumping against the couch.  "Really, another interrogation?  God, I wish I could drink."

Howard Stark was a renowned alcoholic.  She glanced at Steve curiously but he didn't seem bothered so she returned her attention to Howard.

"Gave it up a couple of months before I climbed into the icebox," Howard replied.  "Cap, am I cleared enough to see what you've dug up on Bucky now?  I want to - "

"You don't seriously expect us to believe that you just decided to come out of hiding now, after the agency you created is exposed as a HYDRA hub," Natasha snapped.

"I couldn't exactly defrost myself, and if Peggy knew SHIELD was dirty, she would have woken me immediately," Howard said.

"Would she?  Or would she wait until she was too old to run the scam herself?" she replied.

Steve stiffened beside her and she knew she'd gone too far, but it was necessary right now.  Cap was too important to her now to let another dead man tear him apart.

"Don't you dare talk about Peggy like that, who the hell do you think you are?" Howard fired back before Steve could speak.  "You don't know anything about her if you could even consider that.  She didn't know about Bucky, she couldn't have - if we'd known he survived, we would have gone after him."  He turned his attention to Steve and she didn't sense any lies in his dark eyes.  "Steve, tell me you believe that - I didn't know and Peggy, she couldn't have - "

Steve glared at her and sat down beside Howard.  "I know, Howard, I believe you.  He's an idiot, Natasha, but he's not HYDRA.  That's not a variable."

She knew he believed it, but Cap had a weakness for people wearing his friends' faces.  He phone buzzed and she scanned the text message.  * _Bastard was dying.  Carter stole intel and ran tests on him for cure.  Didnt unfreeze him until no other choice.  Should be dead.  Dont tell Cap_.*

At least Tony was functioning enough to send her a text.  With him out of the Tower, she was in charge of handling Steve while he dealt with his blinders.  She returned her attention to the men in front of her.

"I have the greatest respect for Agent Carter, but your loyalty has been noted, Mr. Stark," Natasha said.  She held his gaze.  "Steve has new people to watch his back now.  Considering you've been dead twenty years, surely you won't hold our suspicions against us."

"I will if you talk shit about my friends.  Cap, Peggy or Barnes," Howard replied.  "My sins are my own."

She could see a man like Howard freezing himself to wait for a cure, rich people still did that, but not many people had the brains or the tech to pull it off.  Howard didn't want to disappoint Captain America but he didn't look at Steve like a hero, not like Tony looked at him when no one was paying attention.  Howard wanted to make things right with his friend, not make things right with the world.

He wasn't what she expected when she got the call.

"You should have called me before you brought him here," Natasha told Cap.

"You were following a lead, I wanted to have something concrete to tell you first.  Did you - " Steve started with the question she'd been waiting for him to get to. 

"Nothing we haven't found before, I think we're scraping the bottom of the barrel on intel we don't already have," she said.  "But there has been a change in the Soldier's patterns in the past few days.  It seems like he's headed toward you instead of away."

" _What_?" Steve asked an instant before Howard.  "Why didn't you tell me that first?"

She rolled her eyes.  "Yeah, no.  I had to vet Stark Sr. first.  But if my timeline plays out, we shouldn't have to go too far to pick up the search.  JARVIS is scanning all the NYC closed circuit videos for facial recognition."

"I want to know how that works, but after you show me what you've got on him.  The intel she has might not be new to you but it might be new to me," Howard said.  He hesitated.  "Did you mention Jarvis?  My Jarvis?"

"He's - Tony will have to explain that, but he's not the friend you're thinking of," Steve replied.  "I left the hard copies and my notes in the bedroom, Tony has to unlock the network for you before I can let you use a computer."

"I can deal with that.  We'll get him back, Cap," Howard said, squeezing Steve's shoulder, glaring at Natasha and disappearing into Steve's room.

"Sorry about - "

"No, I get it.  I didn't like it, but I get it.  Do you believe me now?"

She thought about Tony's text message.  Howard was going to die without a way to wipe the red out of his ledger.  She didn't like it, but she got it.  She nodded.

Her phone buzzed again.  * _JARVIS got a hit.  Soldier's proximity is code red.  Iron Man en route.*_

She met his eyes.  "Hope you're ready for this, Cap."

  
 


	10. 10. Slip

The Soldier, not Bucky, not to anyone other than Cap and Howard, didn't move.  Tony's fingers itched, his bracelets burning his wrists.  A muscle twitched in Natasha's neck and she mapped the room darkly without dropping her gaze from the assassin staring down Steve and Howard. 

Steve moved in front of Howard but he grabbed his arm and frowned sharply.  "Cap," Howard growled.  The Soldier's eyes flicked between them.

"Stand down," Steve warned.  He turned his full attention to the killer watching them.  "Are you Barnes or The Asset?"

Tony's impressed by Steve's unwavering question.  Cap may be compromised but he was always capable. 

"Not sure.  Mix of both," The Soldier replied roughly.  His eyes flicked to Howard's hand on Steve's arm and he frowned.  "Got a few memories.  Pretty sure I killed him."

"Well.  You did, but - " Cap started.

Howard gaped.  "What?  You didn't tell me that - you killed me, Barnes?  After all the shit I did for you?"

The Soldier blinked at him before shifting his attention back to Steve.  "I need to talk to you.  You weren't following me when I came to find you."

"Jesus, _really_?  He follows you for months and you just decide to talk to him now?  You're an asshole," Tony blurted out.

"There are a few of those in here," Natasha muttered.

"Enough," Cap barked.

Howard pushed himself in front of Steve and faced the Soldier down.  "Do you have memories?  Missions?"

The Soldier blinked again and Tony thought he saw a flash of someone else, of emotion, in those eyes before he settled back to his deadly default.  "Mix of both."

"Howard - " Steve hissed.

Howard held up his hand and Cap closed his mouth.  Why didn't that work for Tony?  "Barnes.  Do you remember the war?  When Cap brought you back to base?"

The Soldier's eyes flashed.  "I remember Steve, small and sick.  That should be wrong, he was so _sick_  but this, **now** , him - now is wrong.  Smaller Steve, that was _right_.  I remember _wrong-Steve_ telling me lies."

Tony's fingers twitched for the bracelets again.  Barnes didn't sound particularly stable and Steve visibly flinched.

"Lies?  Steve doesn't lie.  Are you sure?" Howard countered, steadier than everyone else in the room.

Barnes hesitated.  "He said I would be okay, that he would always come for me.  But he didn't come."

Steve didn't move, he didn't react at all and that made everything worse.

"My head's messed up," Barnes said after a long moment.

"I came to see you after the medics cleared you, do you remember?" Howard said.  "Any of it?"

He shook his head and Cap glanced at Howard, confused.  Tony wondered if his father would ever run out of secrets.

"You asked me if there was a way to keep people out of your head," Howard replied, ignoring Steve's attempts to move him back.

Barnes shook his head, frowning.  "I don't remember that."

"You asked and I said no and you didn't believe me.  You said that there had to be a way," Howard said urgently.

"Howard," Cap warned.

"Well obviously there wasn't or I wouldn't be here talking to a man I killed," Barnes replied darkly, shaking off the lapse in his robotic demeanor.

"I gave you a trigger," Howard said finally.  "You called it a shut-down switch.  If you ever got caught again, you could turn off.  So they could never get to your core.  Do you remember?"

Something shifted and Bucky scanned him.  "You jerked me off in the jeep."

"Howard, you promised not to do that with my friends," Cap hissed after a beat, smacking Howard on the back of the head.

"He jerked me off, too, you can't put that all on me," Howard muttered.

"Most uncomfortable standoff ever," Tony winced.  Natasha snorted but didn't seem to agree.

"It's been a long time, my head's too jumbled to remember any flimsy hand-job enhanced triggers," Barnes said.

Howard took a step toward Barnes but Steve clasped onto his shoulder to hold him back.  "Give me your hand and give it a shot.  You're already coming out of it, what if this is the last key you need to be free?"

"My hand?" Barnes asked.  But he didn't step back.

"I wasn't going to use some verbal phrase, too easy to crack," Howard replied.

Steve glared at Howard.  "Please tell me this isn't going to end in a hand-job."

"But Cap, all good things end with a - " Howard started until he saw Steve frown.  "No, it's not that.  It's a pattern.  A tether, in case he ever got lost."

Barnes snapped his hand out, the one not made of metal.  "Do it."

Seeing the three men, from the 40's, from the ice, from the grave - it was a moment he hoped he wouldn't need to forget if everything went wrong.  They were friends, soldiers, and fuck him if he didn't want his father, this one, to be a hero this time.

"I need to know what's real," Barnes said.

"This might not help with that," Natasha spoke quietly.  "This might fuck you up more."

"That's not possible.  When he was following me, I thought maybe, _maybe_ I was Bucky.  Then he gave up and I don't want to give up yet," Barnes said.

Steve shuddered and Tony knew he was going to need a hug of some kind before this went much further.  He hoped Pepper would get back with Bruce soon.

Howard paused but his lips narrowed into a determined line.  He took Bucky's arm by his flesh wrist.  "This might put you down, probably overload your circuits for a bit, so are you sure?"

Barnes nodded.  Tony wondered when he became Barnes instead of The Soldier in his head.

Howard nodded, glanced at Steve and slowly tapped something on his skin.  Taps and lines, morse code.

"Do you remember?" Howard whispered.

"I - " Barnes started slowly.  His eyes widened and his eyes rolled back and he started to fall like a puppet without strings.  Steve lunged forward and caught him under his arms and lowered him to the floor as he shuddered under his hands.

"You didn't come, why didn't you come - _Steve_?  Is it - " Bucky coughed, his pupils blown before he passed out cold.

  
 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feels like it took forever to get here but yay, endgame in sight. 
> 
> *pets Steve*   
> *pets Howard*   
> *warily pets Bucky*


	11. Chapter 11

  
# 11.  Yolo  
  
"No restraints, the room's secure enough and there's a window so he won't feel completely trapped," Bruce explained as Steve lowered Bucky onto the bed with Howard hovering nearby.  He felt like the room was closing in and he couldn't let himself look at Bucky, not after carrying his small, broken frame into the room.  Not after hearing his worst sins laid out on display.  
  
Bruce grabbed his arm suddenly and  pulled him back several steps.  "Hey.  Breathe, Cap, you're - "  
  
"He doesn't have asthma anymore, what's wrong with him?"  
  
"He's having a panic attack."  
  
"What the hell is that?"  
  
Fingers dug into his shoulders and he recognized Natasha looking up at him.  "Come on, Cap, let's take a walk."  
  
He'd spent all this time trying to get his friend back, home, by his side again - all he'd let himself remember were the good times, the best times, but he'd forgotten the rest.  
  
He let Bucky die.  He didn't come for him.  he should have jumped after him on the train, he should have put all the missions off until he had searched the mountains - he should have saved him.  The first thing Bucky thought about when he came to was Steve's abandonment.  His failure.  
  
Pain lashed across his cheek and he blinked stars.  "Steve."  
  
Maria frowned at him, shaking her hand.  "Put this on your face."  
  
"What?"  He tasted cool, plastic air as she pushed a mask over his mouth and nose.  
  
"Hands," Maria ordered.  
  
He vaguely recognized Natasha's red hair and the shadow of Clint behind Maria but he couldn't think.  He watched dully as Maria took his fingers and uncurled them one at a time.  She pinched the skin between his thumb and forefinger and pressed down.  
  
"I don't have a headache," he said, remembering the times she'd done this before.  
  
Her eyes were dark with worry and he didn't like it.  He narrowed his focus to the pressure from her fingers and everything cleared slightly.  Natasha and Clint were glancing at each other.  "Sit-rep?"  
  
"Don't even with that, Cap," Clint muttered.  
  
"You're having a panic attack, Steve.  Are you with us?" Maria asked softly without releasing her hold.  
  
"Yeah.  Sort of.  Did I freak out?  I was trying really hard not to freak out," Steve said, taking a deep breath of the cool, plastic air.  
  
"Pretty sure that's what made you freak out, Cap," Natasha replied with a kindness he didn't recognize.  They were friends and she'd watched him go through a lot of shit, but she sounded genuinely worried.  That was enough to bring him out of his haze.  
  
Howard stepped out of the room and found him with sharp eyes.  "You all right?"  
  
"No," he answered honestly.  
  
Howard crouched down, hip-checking Maria aside so he could pull the mask off his face.  He patted both his cheeks and held his gaze.  "Do you trust me?"  
  
"Yes," he answered without needing to think about it.  
  
"We'll get him back, Steve.  I swear to you - "  
  
"You swear too much," Steve choked out and pulled him into a hug.  
  
Howard mumbled into his shoulder.  "You know he doesn't understand, you can't believe anything he says right now - he's like an open sore.  Please tell me you get that."  
  
"I'm trying.  Will you stay with him?  You planted the trigger, you know what you're doing," Steve said, releasing him and pretending like everyone wasn't staring at them.  
  
"You - " Howard hesitated.  
  
"I want to give him space.  He needs time and I can at least give him that," he whispered.  "I trust you."  
  
Natasha muttered something in Russian but Howard's nod was all he needed to get through right now.  
  



	12. Chapter 12

  
# 12.  Potholders  
  
"Let me get through this as Cap before you start worrying about Steve," he said when Natasha and Tony approached him outside of Bruce's lab with intent looks on their faces.  
  
"Sorry, not an option after all that.  What do the docs say?" Tony asked, sitting down on one side of him so Natasha could flank the other.      
  
"He's underweight and malnourished but he's already perking up from the stuff they're pumping into him.  Howard says he's Bucky again, but he remembers everything that he slept through in his mental hiding place - or what-the-fuck-ever Howard did back then," Steve said.  
  
"You haven't talked to him?" Natasha asked quietly.  
  
He shook his head.  "I don't want to do anything to mess up his recovery so I'm standing down.  When he's steadier, hell, when I'm steadier, maybe we can face each other."  
  
He left Bucky in the snow.  He accepted that he couldn't save him on the train, but he could have saved him after.  He could have put on a fucking parka and found his best friend before the Soviets did.  
  
He failed at the only thing that ever mattered to him after his mom died.  He left his only family to die in a frozen hell.  
  
"Don't be an asshole about this, Cap.  You know he wasn't in his right mind and if I can make friends with the father that decided to let a robot douchebag raise me then you can accept that Bucky didn't mean what he said," Tony said.  
  
"He wasn't Bucky when he said it.  Bucky would have never said it to my face," Steve replied.  No matter how Bucky really felt, he would never admit it to Steve if he thought it would upset him.  
  
"Cap," Natasha whispered.  
  
He took a deep breath.  "I'm going to hang out at Maria's tonight.  Bucky's going to be in medical at least until tomorrow and I need to be somewhere I can think."  
  
"You can't think here?" Tony countered immediately.  
  
"Like you don't hide in your workshop when you don't want to talk, Maria's only a few blocks away," Natasha said, glaring at Tony.  
  
"And Sam's coming up tomorrow," Steve added.  "He's pretty pissed I didn't call him sooner but maybe when I lay everything out for me he can figure out an appropriate pep talk."  
  
"At Maria's," Tony stated.  
  
"She doesn't make me talk until I'm ready to talk.  She makes me laugh," Steve replied.  Tony closed his mouth.  
  
The door opened and Howard stepped out, frowning.  "He wants to see you.  He's threatening to break things."  
  
Steve wasn't sure he was ready yet.  "Really?"  
  
"Bruce doesn't like people breaking his things," Howard replied.  
  
He stood up.  "All right.  Let's do this."  
  
"Are you sure?" Natasha asked.  
  
"Regardless of what you hear, I don't always have a plan," Steve snorted as he followed Howard through the door.  
  
This is what he wanted.  The only thing left.  Bucky was here, alive.  He would be okay.  He would get a life, even if it was 70 years too late.  He would go back into the ice, let scientists take him apart limb by limb, lay down the shield and kneel for a bullet - anything to make sure Bucky had another chance.  This was what he'd been brought back for, this was the point of everything.  
  
He let out his breath and filled his lungs with new air and stepped into the room.

**Author's Note:**

> Title belongs to Fall Out Boy.


End file.
